CT Construction Digest Monday April 4, 2022
STAMFORD — Escape, a Harbor Point high-rise, could have suffered a similar fate to neighboring Allure, which had part of its fifth-floor terrace collapse. At Escape, however, developer Building and Land Technology uncovered the similar structural quirk during construction.
The problem — missing interior supports in the terrace’s cement — was preemptively fixed before Escape was completed with steel plates installed to prevent future trouble, the developer said.
The existence of the plates was confirmed during the city’s investigation into other properties owned by Harbor Point developer BLT.
“These retrofits were originally made during construction last year and signed off on by the engineer of record, Henderson Rodgers,” according to BLT spokesman Rob Blanchard.
A 15-by-20 foot slab on the fifth-floor amenities deck at Allure fell into the building parking garage on Feb. 1. No one was injured and no property was damaged.
Investigators at the time pointed to missing interior supports in the terrace’s cement and found that a similar problem had arisen at Escape, which shared design features with Allure, Stamford officials announced Thursday during a Board of Representatives subcommittee meeting.
During an earlier stage of the Allure investigation, officials said, a resident sent photographs of steel plates in Escape to representatives from Stamford’s Building Department. John Cocca, an engineer with Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, the firm hired by the city to help investigate the Allure damage, said his firm checked the Escape plans and spoke with BLT’s engineers, who confirmed that there were steel plates installed at Escape, which abuts Allure.
However, while being questioned by Rep. Bradley Bewkes, R-1, Cocca, in particular, suggested contractors working for BLT had made mistakes linked to the partial collapse.
“The contractor installed something wrong, and then the special inspector didn’t flag it as being non-compliant,” Cocca said.
At Escape, the mistake was caught, officials said.
City officials did not release the name of the special inspectors involved with the Allure or Escape properties. Concrete construction company Baker Concrete built the slab at Allure.
Henderson Rodgers, the group linked to many of BLT’s development efforts in the neighborhood, told investigators looking into several BLT buildings as part of an expanded investigation into Allure that structural supports within the Escape slab had been “reversed” during installation, city engineer Lou Casolo said during a Board of Representatives subcommittee meeting Thursday. Henderson Rodgers installed the retrofits to compensate for that change, officials said.
Looking into Allure, and the building practices of the contractors who built it, has been under investigation since the Allure terrace collapse. As part of that, earlier Thursday, engineers from WJE participated in a walk-through of the entire Allure property, visiting 10 apartments across both the Allure towers and the fifth-floor amenity deck where the collapse occurred.
“We were looking for cracking in the drywall, ceilings and walls that could be indicative of distress with the structure underneath,” engineer John Cocca explained to the board. “We were looking for gaps in the trim work around the ceilings and around the walls that may indicate some sort of deflections.”
Cocca did not find any structural improprieties in either Allure tower, he went on to explain. However, he said, it is most likely that structural deficiencies would happen on any similarly constructed building.
“It’s the fifth floor,” he said. “That is a very, very different structure than the remainder — the balance of the tower and the balance of the garage.”
As WJE and the city continue to investigate, Cocca said they would pay extra attention to the “atypical construction” in those regions.
As in previous meetings, Director of Operations Matt Quinones, Casolo and Cocca emphasized the investigation of BLT’s buildings is ongoing but expanding. A final report from engineers will ultimately detail everything that caused the Feb. 1 partially collapsed terrace.
Blanchard said in a statement that BLT has also commissioned reports on Allure and Escape.
“From the moment the collapse occurred, BLT has been working with both the City of Stamford and independent engineers to review both the Allure and the rest of the buildings within our portfolio,” he wrote. Both “concluded that there were no additional issues, and we have provided to the City for review.”
Mayor Caroline Simmons laid out plans to examine eight additional Harbor Point properties built by the South End’s biggest developer as part of its investigation. Bewkes clarified that the buildings were selected not because “these have similar potential irregularities.”
“It’s just simply because they were built by the developer, and we’re looking into — more or less — all of the towers that were built by that developer,” he said.
STAMFORD — The day part of a terrace collapsed at the Allure high rise building, developer Building and Land Technology never called for emergency help.
In fact, by the time Stamford’s fire department found out about the partial collapse — by a call that appeared to be about a blocked entrance — BLT already had engineers in place shoring up the damage, according to city public safety officials.
“It almost sounds like they were more concerned about solving the problem and possibly covering it up than following the proper procedure,” Board President Jeff Curtis, D-14, said during a meeting Thursday of the city’s Public Safety Committee where the information was revealed.
BLT spokesperson Rob Blanchard rebutted Curtis in a statement, arguing that once BLT ownership was alerted of the incident, it opted to assess the site with its engineers.
“BLT ownership was made immediately aware of the incident and deployed to the site with our team as well as contractors and engineers,” Blanchard told The Stamford Advocate. “The site was secured and made safe, the city was informed, and we worked proactively with the city to inspect both the Allure and our other buildings.”
Blanchard went on to say that “it was collectively discussed and determined after surveying the scene, that the situation was not life threatening, no one had been harmed and the occupancy of the building was deemed safe, and there was no need for additional emergency resources or evacuation.”
The fifth-floor damage on Feb. 1, which temporarily left parts of the parking garage and building amenity spaces underneath the terrace unusable, left the city Representatives undivided on where blame should be focused: on BLT for not calling 911. No one was injured, and there was no damage to personal property at Allure, which is one of BLT’s Harbor Point high rises.
However, the presentations from Director of Public Safety Ted Jankowski and members of the city Fire Department prompted a rancorous back-and-forth between the fire representatives and some board members who argued that public safety officials should have responded differently to an event which has prompted a months-long investigation from the city.
“The response by the state of Connecticut’s third-largest fire department is unacceptable to me, because this is a situation where there could have been a lot of people that were hurt,” Rep. Nina Sherwood, D-8, said during the hours-long discussion on Allure. “And we didn’t even deploy emergency vehicles.”
Jankowksi explained that the Allure partial collapse likely occurred at 1:10 p.m. Feb. 1, nearly four hours before emergency responders visited the site.
Neither a BLT employee nor a resident phoned in an emergency complaint. Information obtained by The Stamford Advocate show that Allure management sent an email to building residents explaining that part of the fifth floor outdoor terrace had collapsed at 2:55 p.m.
The Fire Department received a complaint from a resident’s mother inquiring over the “crumbling” terrace at 3:22 p.m., according to the city’s memo. Around that time, a reporter — identified by Jankowski Thursday to be from News 12 — asked the 911 dispatch center whether public safety officials had responded to a partial collapse in a garage.
A March 1 memo sent from Mayor Caroline Simmons to board President Jeff Curtis says that Fire Department headquarters received a message from “an acquaintance of an occupant at 850 Pacific Street for a crumbling ceiling and a blocked exit at that location. This was the first official report received regarding the incident.”
The city’s official timeline puts Assistant Chiefs Miguel Robles, Robert Morris and Fire Marshal Walter Seely at the scene by 3:55 p.m., the records state.
When Robles, Morris and Seely arrived on-site, engineers from BLT were already present, shoring up the collapsed region and fencing it off. The company that services BLT’s fire alarms was also present, fixing the alarms.
Robles told representatives that, when his team arrived, he asked one question to the present engineers: “Can someone assure me that nothing else is going to collapse here?”
Engineers assured the Fire Department team that the property was stable and that it was the only part of the building with this type of construction.
“We went over there; we inspected it; we looked at it,” Robles said. “It looks secure, it was shored up from underneath... We believed that it was safe, that it wasn’t going to move anywhere. There was no further danger, immediate danger, that would require a fire department response.”
Shot back Sherwood, “We should have been the ones shoring up the situation, not a private entity.”
“If 911 was called when this happened, you would have had that response,” Robles stated. “That’s what would have happened. But it wasn’t called to us as a collapse.”
The Fire Department’s automated system would have sent three different fire companies along with an EMS unit and an “incident safety officer,” according to documents read by Rep. Jeffrey Stella, D-9, at the meeting.
But the three men responded to the situation as a Life Safety Code violation, which Fire Chief Trevor Roach characterized Friday morning as “the proactive side” of what the department does.
“The safety code governs characteristics of the building that make it safe for people during an emergency,” Roach said to the Advocate. They run the gamut from broken sprinklers and fire detectors to blocked exits, like the report made about Allure. Because a caller alerted fire officials of a blocked exit, the response did not trigger emergency units on site, he said.
When Sherwood argued that trusting “an agent of the owner” rather than examining the situation firsthand, Robles argued that the situation required no further emergency action; Jankowski backed him up.
“If you’re alluding to the fact that, if a rescue company was on scene, something would have been different, I beg to disagree,” he said.
Jankowski said that all the bases were covered by engineers on site, and dispatching more staff to the scene could have strained the department’s resources.
HARTFORD — A major milestone in the decadeslong push to redevelop an expanse of parking lots near The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts is now being marked as the state seeks developers for the largest of those asphalt lots.
The prospect of new housing, paired with shops, restaurants and entertainment venues on 3 acres just east of the historic and recently-renovated State Office Building on Capitol Avenue can’t come soon enough for some area residents.
“That parking lot has been an asphalt desert in the center of our neighborhood for decades,” Robin Zaleski, chairwoman of the South Downtown, or SoDo, Neighborhood Revitalization Zone and a resident for 17 years. “To drive up Capitol Avenue or Hudson Street and see a sea of cars or a sea of asphalt — depending on what time of day it was — did not make our neighborhood feel like a neighborhood.
“There was no there, there.”
Now, the Capital Region Development Authority is seeking developers for the state-owned parking lot, the first of a half-dozen between Washington and Main streets, on both sides of Capitol Avenue.
Those lots — some owned by the state, others privately controlled — plus other existing structures could be redeveloped as part of “Bushnell South,” a $500 million project envisioned to transform the 20-acre area over the next decade.
Now, the Capital Region Development Authority is seeking developers for the state-owned parking lot, the first of a half-dozen between Washington and Main streets, on both sides of Capitol Avenue.
Those lots — some owned by the state, others privately controlled — plus other existing structures could be redeveloped as part of “Bushnell South,” a $500 million project envisioned to transform the 20-acre area over the next decade.
The vision is to foster a stronger, walkable connection between Bushnell Park, the nearby hospital district and Park Street, extending beyond to Colt Park. The redevelopment would foster more vibrancy and boost economic vitality of the area.
CRDA said it is looking for developers with experience building from the ground up in cities. Once one or more is chosen in late spring or early summer, plans will be drawn up, based on a consultant’s vision outlined last year.
Financing will need to be cobbled together, likely a combination of private and public funding. Construction could begin next year or in 2024, CRDA said.
“We know it will take a long time,” Zaleski said. “Construction does not go fast. Supply-chain issues are just making it longer, so we know it’s not going to be a magical, overnight situation. But we are excited that there is finally going to be some development there.”
21st-century catalyst
A century ago, when The Bushnell was erected, the Capitol Avenue area already was in the midst of change. The street was still lined with homes and shaded by trees, but its wealthiest residents had moved and built grand mansions in the city’s West End.
City observers in the late 1920s wondered if a new phase of development also would follow and whether the building of the Georgian Colonial-style Bushnell would be the catalyst for a new era of store, office and apartment buildings.
In the decades that followed, government edifices rose in the area, followed by steady expansion of parking lots, needed as workers increasingly commuted from the suburbs. But the shops, restaurants and apartments were never built, even through the 1970s and ’80s when there was a push for redevelopment in the area.
The state-funded renovation of the State Office Building, completed in late 2019, provided a 21st century catalyst.
The $205 million project — including a new parking garage and a park along the east side of the building — also came at a time when the state opened up public financing for housing projects in and around Hartford to boost revitalization. The parking lots in the area were mostly used by state employees. To free up the asphalt lots for redevelopment, a second, state-financed, $16 million garage also was built on Capitol next to a church.
The second garage will be used by state employees, Bushnell patrons and future residents of the area, as part of a larger, “district” parking plan. The garage also may be opened to the public later this year.
The parking garages were part of a complex choreography unfolding over several years to set the stage for future redevelopment on the surface lots.
‘A different housing stock’
A consultant’s plan for the, Bushnell South area last spring called for as many as 1,200 residential units — both rented and owned — restaurants, shops and entertainment venues.
The first, 3 acres, would include a broad pedestrian promenade with restaurants and space for outdoor events. The promenade would be between the new park and a block of 372 apartments and townhouses.
The buildings could be 4 or 5 stories along Capitol, with residential units over storefronts, and lower along the Buckingham Street side.
The housing alone could cost about $75 million, by one estimate.
Remnants of what the area looked liked before the parking lots are still visible on Capitol Avenue and Buckingham Street near Main Street.
Jane Macy-Painter and her husband, Earl Henrichon, have lived in a brownstone condominium on Buckingham Street for 17 years and are raising their daughter, Lillian, 9, there.
While rentals are key to revitalization, redevelopment in the area also needs to include properties that can be purchased to boost homeownership in the heart of the city.
“For downsizers and families, to have a more diverse — for different age groups and demographics — it’s important to have a different housing stock,” Macy-Painter said.
‘How is the market absorbing all of this?’
How quickly redevelopment of the first parking lot will unfold will be heavily influenced by the ability to put together financing and the pace of leasing from a growing number of apartments in the downtown area.
Michael W. Freimuth, CRDA’s executive director, said the quasi-public agency hopes to build a pool of funds from private corporations — traditionally involved in city projects — to help fund the construction of new housing in Bushnell South.
Those funds would likely be invested in the project as low-cost loans. The idea is patterned after Cigna and Stanley Black & Decker, lending $1.7 million to the first phase of the mixed-use redevelopment around Dunkin’ Donuts Park, the city’s minor league ballpark.
The pace of Bushnell South’s redevelopment on the parking lot also will be determined by apartment leasing primarily in conversion projects elsewhere in the Bushnell South area.
Those projects include the conversion of the historic 55 Elm St. on Pulaski Circle and across from Bushnell Park. The $63 million project will create of 160 rentals in the 1926 structure. Work is expected to begin this spring. The project is headed by Spinnaker Real Estate Partners, a developer from South Norwalk, which is expected to be a strong force in shaping Bushnell South’s development.
In addition to 55 Elm, the former offices of the attorney general and originally built for the Connecticut General Life Insurance Co., Spinnaker has acquired other parking lots nearby for future development.
The state of Connecticut also is selling two historic office buildings at the corner of Elm and Trinity streets for conversion to an undetermined number of apartments. So far, occupancy in newer apartment projects in and around downtown are in the mid-90s or better. But rents in Greater Hartford as elsewhere in the state and the country are soaring and starting to squeeze out potential tenants. Cost of construction also has increased amid supply-chain disruptions in the pandemic.
A report from CRDA showed a robust pipeline of apartments, including nearly 500 in construction and another 750 that will likely commence later this year.
Raymark cleanup continues on schedule, EPA tells Stratford
STRATFORD — Cleanup of the Raymark Industries site is mostly on schedule at this point, environmental engineer Jim DiLorenzo from the Environmental Protection Agency said at a public meeting Wednesday night.
The team is currently excavating contaminates from a vacant lot behind Blue Goose Restaurant and are set to finish that portion of the project by the end of April, DiLorenzo said.
Cleanup efforts are focused on removing soil containing lead, chrysotile asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and copper, according to a Raymark Community Advisory Group meeting presentation from Dec. 2017.
After remediation of the lot is complete, the EPA and U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers will also remediate plots at Beacon Point, Hitchcock Marina and possibly Third Avenue and Lockwood before the year’s end. The group hopes to be done with the remediation portion by the end of 2024, DiLorenzo said.
“We hope to be done by the end of 2024 and out of town with the consolidation remedied at that time,” DiLorenzo said. “So far that remains on that schedule and we do have funding in place to keep us going.”
DiLorenzo said the group hopes to move about half of the total volume of contaminants to the former Raybestos Memorial Field by the end of this year, with the rest coming by the end of 2023.
There is also a new EPA office at 300 Ferry Boulevard. This will serve as an office space for workers from the EPA, plus the engineers and any contractors for the project.
The placement of the office is “strategic” since it is near other properties on Ferry Boulevard that need remediation, DiLorenzo said. This space is also one of the properties that needs to be remediated, which officials considered a benefit.
“By renting it now we have one less business to coordinate with as well,” DiLorenzo said.
The office will also host future advisory group meetings, with the option to participate remotely, DiLorenzo said.
Officials also said that they have continued to monitor airborne contaminants at a variety of points near cleanup sites. Weekly air reports are posted on the town website, they said.
“There have been no risks whatsoever to the workers or the residents nearby abutting the property or anywhere near it,” said Dave Heislein, the Army Corps of Engineers project manager.
Heislein said they make sure to keep all soil wet to reduce the amount of dust kicked up into the air.
The contract for construction on a storm water system upgrade has been awarded, fellow project manager Mike Looney said. The construction will start in late May and is expected to take nine months.
The contract was awarded to the cleanup’s primary contractor, Sevenson Environmental, Inc., which has subcontracted John J. Brennan Construction Company. Looney said John J. Brennan will be doing most of the work.
A new pump station is a portion of this storm water system, but this is still yet to go out for bid, he said.
Raymark Industries, Inc. was an automotive parts manufacturer in Stratford. The company dumped liquid waste and contaminates into containment pools, but waste also entered Ferry Creek through on-site lagoons, according to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration. Sludge and soil from these lagoons was used as fill for properties in town and along the Housatonic River.